Pizzarelli still defending the jazz standards

JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer

For a guy who came of age in the '70s, listening to the Allman
Brothers, James Taylor and Peter Frampton, jazz singer and
guitarist John Pizzarelli has certainly become a stout defender of
the jazz tradition.

A few years ago, when interviewed in the Orange County Weekly by
since-deceased San Diego music journalist Buddy Seigal, Pizzarelli
laid into rock stars trying to cross over into jazz and standards,
holding up Rod Stewart as a particularly egregious example.

Asked a few weeks ago whether he's softened in his viewpoint
that rock and pop stars should quit trying to tackle jazz
standards, Pizzarelli laughed and said no, he stands by his
assessment of rock singers' attempts at jazz singing, and Stewart's
in particular.

"The theory you hear is that it's not a big deal if Rod Stewart
does an album of standards, because people will hear the songs. But
they're going to hear the songs badly; the worst parts of the
music.

"I have no problem with them making the records. But it's not
representative of the style of music."

Pizzarelli, who is singing with the San Diego Symphony on Aug.
23 at a fundraiser for the Salk Institute in La Jolla, did allow
that not all rock and pop singers are failures in singing jazz.

"When Linda Ronstadt wanted to make a jazz record, she got with
Nelson Riddle and tried to do it right," he said. "Queen Latifah --
she made great records," he added when asked about the rap star's
two recent albums of jazz and standards.

While Pizzarelli was in rock bands in high school and college
and listened to the popular rock hits of the day, he said his
musical taste was also being shaped by hearing his father, jazz
guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli.

"I had two older sisters, so that music was in the house," he
said of his exposure to 1970s rock and pop. "Then I'd go out and
hear my dad play with Zoot Sims with jazz standards.

"It was fun to hear all the different kinds of music."

He said his father (who sits in on his latest album, "With a
Song in My Heart") was always supportive of his efforts, even when
they were in rock rather than jazz.

"I think he liked the fact that we were at home playing music. I
think the volume might have got on his nerves.

"He still laughs about it, because we played outside one summer
and the cops came."

Pizzarelli said that when he struck out on his career in music
in his late teens, he was playing a wide variety of music just
trying to earn a living. The dedication to jazz kind of sneaked up
on him.

"I was doing a lot of work with my father and playing guitar.
And I was playing in restaurants and … singing, and I was working
with a singer who sang a lot of Michael Franks and Kenny Rankin
kind of stuff.

"I'm out there trying to play a living, and I'm playing a lot
more jazz than I am pop tunes."

It was hearing the classic recording of "Straighten Up and Fly
Right" by Nat King Cole that really grabbed his ears as far as the
joys of playing standards, Pizzarelli said. From there, he
discovered Count Basie and the whole jazz canon.

"All those songs related to me. It was just as fun to play that
stuff as it was to play the rock 'n' roll and pop songs."

While his latest album is a collection of songs by Richard
Rodgers, and while he's associated with the jazz classics,
Pizzarelli said he doesn't buy into the popular argument that there
are no songs being written today comparable to the classics from
the 1930s, '40s and '50s.

"I don't think the Great American Songbook in quotes is a finite
thing. For a certain era, a lot of these songs were showtunes.
Every show had 15-20 songs; there's a lot of material from just one
show.

"Billy Joel, James Taylor, there's maybe not a lot I can turn
into my style -- swing jazz style -- certainly there's material
being written that's in reach.

"In general, good songs stay with you no matter what. They're
Don Henley songs I think are great. There're a lot of great Sting
songs. There're Billy Joel songs."

But his bread and butter remains the jazz standard, and he's
cultivated an audience of people his age (late 40s) and younger,
who grew up long after the heyday of big band and swing. Pizzarelli
said the fact that so many young people still support the classic
songs of the swing era only shows the staying power of a great
composition.

"I think they find the music interesting," he said of his fans.
"The thing that's sort of fun is that everybody can do the same
songs, and the individual brings their own personality. So you can
hear five recordings of 'All of Me' or any Gershwin, and you'll
hear five versions."

John Pizzarelli with the San Diego Symphony perform at
fundraiser for the Salk Institute